Why the Worst Game Ever Won't Stay Buried

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It's hard to imagine a video game so terrible that it could
single-handedly crash an entire market, but in 1982, Atari
released one. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial"was such an ignominious
failure that Atari buried all unsold copies of the game — almost
4 million of them — in the New Mexico desert, or so gaming's most
famous urban legend goes. Now a documentary team wants
to find the resting place of Atari's greatest shame.

What made the game so horrible to earn the ignominy of an
anonymous mass grave?

"E.T.,"based on the movie of the same name (about as much as
"Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter" is based on
American history ), managed to forge new territory in awful
movie tie-in games. This is an especially impressive feat, given
that games based on movies already tend to exist near the bottom
of the gaming barrel.

Although the game cost tens of millions of dollars to make (The
New York Times estimated that Atari had to spend $20 million to
$25 million for the licensing rights alone), Atari had only five
weeks to work on it: The game developer secured the movie rights
in July, and the game had to ship for the lucrative Christmas
season.

In comparison, analysts estimate that 2012's "Halo 4," which took
four years to make, cost somewhere between $80 million and $100
million, including marketing. Furthermore, the movie "E.T." cost
just about$10 million to make in 1982 (about $23 million today).

The resulting game was spectacular only in its ability to
disappoint. The game casts the player as E.T., who must navigate
a two-dimensional map as he searches for three pieces of an
intergalactic
communicator (to "phone home"). The pieces are randomly
scattered throughout a series of puke-green pits.

Upon falling into a pit (and losing a chunk of E.T.'s life bar,
to boot), the player occasionally finds a phone piece — although,
more often, he'll find nothing and have to expend more life to
leave the pit again. A government agent shows up periodically to
catch the titular extraterrestrial and take away his collected
phone parts, while E.T. can consume Reese's Pieces candy (no,
really) to restore his life bar.

If you think that this game sounds simplistic and boring — even
by 1982 standards — you're not alone. Atari printed 5 million
copies of this monstrosity, and sold only 1.5 million — not
nearly enough to recoup the massive development cost.

The game effectively dismantled Atari and, given Atari's
staggering market presence, made it seem as though the time of
the household video-game console had come to an end. Only the
surprise success of the
Nintendo Entertainment System one year later could prove home
consoles' viability.

With millions of unwanted copies of "E.T.," Atari crushed the
remaining cartridges and buried them near Alamogordo, N.M. They
likely would have remained there, unperturbed until the end of
days, save for the intervention of Fuel Industries. [See also:
5
Hit Games Made on a Shoestring ]

The Ontario-based production company is hard at work on a
documentary about the infamous game and its aftermath. The film
crew sought permission from the Alamogordo government to journey
into the desert and dig for the gaming equivalent of fool's gold.

Today (June 4), the city commissioner agreed, according to the
Associated Press. This may be less an act of charity and more
one of revenge, though: The commissioner recalled playing "E.T."
in his youth and despising it.

With the modern console industry
fracturing at the seams, the lesson of "E.T." is more salient
than ever. Bloated development costs will sink a studio, and a
recognizable franchise is not enough to cover a bad game. Today's
console market is too diversified for one single game to sink it,
but playing a terrible game is punishment on its own.